Mantel
mid 16th century: specialized use of mantle1.
wiktionary
From Middle English mantel, from Old English mentel(“sleeveless cloak”), later reinforced by cognate Anglo-Norman mantel, both from Latin mantēllum(“covering, cloak”), diminutive of mantum, from Celtiberian *mantum, from a Proto-Indo-European root shared with Old Norse mǫttull.
etymonline
mantel (n.)
c. 1200, "short, loose, sleeveless cloak," variant of mantle (q.v.). Sense of "movable shelter for soldiers besieging a fort" is from 1520s.
The meaning "timber or stone supporting masonry above a fireplace" is attested by 1510s; it is a shortened form of Middle English mantiltre "mantle-tree" (late 15c.) "beam of oak or some other hard wood above a fireplace or oven" (with tree in the now-obsolete sense of "beam"). But the exact meaning of mantle in that had become obscure by the 19c.
In a fire-place, the mantle or mantlepiece, may have been either a covered or chimney-piece; or the part below it to which a hanging, for the sake of making a flue for the wind to draw up the fire, was attached. The details, however, of this are uncertain. [Robert Gordon Latham, "A Dictionary of the English Language," 1882]
Mantel-clock "clock intended to sit on a mantle-shelf," is by 1824.
